Hallmark has get-well wishes

Graphics

KANSAS CITY, Mo. Say it's your birthday or you've just had a baby, maybe got engaged or bought your first house. If you're like many Americans, your friends are texting their congratulations, sending you an e-card or clicking “Like” on your Facebook wall.

Once a staple of birthdays and holidays, paper greeting cards are fewer and farther between – now seen as something special, instead of something that's required. The cultural shift is worrisome for the nation's top card maker, Hallmark Cards Inc., which last week said it will close a Kansas plant that made one-third of its greeting cards. In consolidating its Kansas operations, Kansas City-based Hallmark plans to shed 300 jobs.

Brian Sword, 34, of Kansas City said he's “definitely” buying and receiving fewer printed cards than he did a decade ago, though he still prefers to send them to – and receive them from – a small group of close friends and family.

“I do think there are a lot of benefits, and it does say more when it comes in a paper card format than when it comes even as an online greeting card. There's just something about receiving that card in the mail and opening it up and having it be a physical card.”

According to a U.S. Postal Service study, correspondence such as greeting cards fell 24 percent between 2002 and 2010. Invitations alone dropped nearly 25 percent just between 2008 and 2010. The survey attributed the decline to “changing demographics and new technologies,” adding that younger households “both send and receive fewer pieces of correspondence mail because they tend to be early adapters of new and faster communication media.”

Hallmark has made changes. It has an iPhone app, for example, that lets people buy and mail cards from their phones.

Its chief rival, American Greetings, based in Cleveland, actually went from trimming costs and jobs amid the recession to announcing in August that it's adding 125 workers to an Osceola, Ark., plant. It's part of an expansion that will allow customers to design their own cards – online, of course.

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.